Monday, June 10, 2013

OnJune 18, 2013the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD) and Michigan State University (MSU) will host a table-top exercise that will promote awareness of food fraud. Food fraud is a collective term used to encompass the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food for economic gain.

Registration is required. There will be no cost to participants and lunch is included.

With an Innovative Food Defense Grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a tabletop training exercise has been developed that promotes awareness of food fraud. Food fraud threatens both the public's health and the food and agriculture economy. With successful piloting in Michigan, the exercise will be available nationally as a supplement to the FDA's Food Related Emergency Exercise Boxed (FREE-B) set. The tabletop training exercise will feature participants' interaction surrounding an emerging Food Fraud scenario. This exercise will demonstrate how different agencies and authorities interact at the local, state and federal level and with the private sector. Participants will also learn about other types of Food Fraud to heighten awareness among authorities and better protect the public's health.

Training participants will include public health officials, food inspectors, various regulatory authorities and the private sector. Awareness of the public health threat from food fraud is a key tactic in thwarting this growing concern.

Friday, June 07, 2013

UCLA School of Law has received a $4 million gift from the Resnick Family Foundation to establish the Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy. The gift provides for as much as another $3 million in matching endowment funds. The new program will explore ways to hasten improvements in the modern food system. In addressing questions of food safety, distribution and access, the Resnick Program will focus on reforming food law and policy for the benefit of the consumer.

As part of this effort, the law school will collaborate with UCLA's world-class medical, public health, public policy and sustainability programs to provide an interdisciplinary approach to developing effective, consumer-oriented food law and policy, such as increasing educational efforts to assist consumers in understanding the central issues relating to food; improving the clarity and accuracy of food labeling; ensuring food safety and wider access to healthy food for all segments of the population; and monitoring the effect of food production on our natural resources.